


The Light Within Us All

by BubuBORG



Series: Team Medi:  Sons of Durin [7]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Gen, Man Out of Time, Team Medi Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 18:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18078788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubuBORG/pseuds/BubuBORG
Summary: Sonny Clemonds returns to Earth, still figuring out the 24th Century, and is greeted by someone who knows what he's going through.





	The Light Within Us All

**Author's Note:**

> This little ficlet was a gift for a friend who'd just finished Season one of TNG.
> 
> This story takes place between "The Neutral Zone (TNG)" and "The Child (TNG)"--So, late 2364

 

Sonny didn’t ever figure to see Earth from this angle.

 

Hell, back when he was touring around every honky-tonk and roadhouse in the flyover states, he barely paid attention to whenever NASA sent up a shuttle—excepting for when _Challenger_ blew up, but everyone was talking about that. 

 

But the view from the _Charleston_ was awesome.

 

The trip to Earth was pretty educational in and of itself.It was just like visiting a new town—You get yourself acclimated to the culture, the tastes, what’s in, what’s out, that sort of thing.Sonny got along to get along and eventually, folks stopped looking at him like he’d grown horns.

 

The high-and-mighty fellow he’d woken up with, Offenhouse, had reacted badly to the reality of this 24th Century future.But Sonny’d found it an exciting thing to behold. 

In all the time it’d taken to get him home, the folks around him had a very narrow taste in Earth music.Sure, there was some jazz here and some folksy music elsewhere, but where was the rock’n’roll?He had to explain to a nice young lady the concept of the Beatles, the Stones, the Jefferson Airplane, for Christ’s sake! 

He suspected the _Enterprise_ captain had hauled him, Offenhouse and Claire to the other ship, mostly to get them out of his hair—so to speak, that is.That was a firm undercurrent he could vibe off of the Starfleet folks.People like him—people from their past—were considered to be beneath them.He might as well been a cave-dwelling Neanderthal to them!

And, while he took the time to give himself a little future history education, he had to give it to them.World War III finally happened.A little bit of “The Day After”, a little bit of “Mad Max”, at least in some spots, but then…

Then the human race turned it around.

And three centuries later, it was the planet outside the window before him. 

 

Everything was new.New spaceships, with their odd, yet compelling shapes, space stations in orbit that looked for all the world like giant blue mushrooms. 

Even the way of getting down to Earth was new.

 

It didn’t even itch, getting tele-transported down to the surface.A bit of static in the ears, some sparkling in front of his eyes and one place became another like that.

 

And what a place he got beamed down to. 

It was built into the cliffs by the Golden Gate Bridge.Some kind of transport tube was constructed where the bridge highway used to be.Guess cars were out of style too, Sonny thought. 

 

“You’re gonna get run over if you stand there too long.”

 

Sonny looked back and forth for the voice but didn’t immediately find it until he looked down at someone’s faded blond crown.

“Let’s take a step this way, friend.”The short man suggested and Sonny complied. 

Sonny looked down at the man, now at this right.His hair was long, and braided in the back in one long plait.His beard was impressive—ZZ Top impressive, in fact—and was braided as well, with silver beads capped at the ends.By the time the two made eye contact Sonny could tell from his blue eyes, with horizontally, goat-like pupils, that he wasn’t from around there.

“Don’t mind me starin’,” Sonny said.“This whole thing’s still kinda new to me.”

“Oh?” the short fellow responded, his eyebrows raised, looking Sonny up and down.“You look local to me.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been home.Few centuries, in fact.”

The stranger smiled and nodded.“Ah.You must be from the cryo-sat.Just got off the Charleston?”

“Yup, that’s me.Sonny Clemonds, you can call me Sonny, you can call me LQ,” Sonny said, offering his hand.The stranger took it.He was wearing a Starfleet uniform, with blue over his barrel chest.A doctor or scientist, if Sonny recalled.

“Dr. Fili,” was the response.“I was told you’d disembark here.Mrs. Raymond has family waiting in Indiana, and Mr. Offenhouse…” The doctor’s expression darkened, “Made other arrangements.”

“Awright,” Sonny nodded. 

“I am— _was_ —on the board here at Starfleet Medical.We tend to take up cases similar to yours.”

Sonny scoffed.“How many folks get stranded in another century, doc?” he asked. 

Fili shrugged.“Me and my brother, for one,” he said.

“Whaaaat?” Sonny asked, smiling incredulously. 

“The place I come from, it was, until most recently, something from your Middle Ages,” Fili explained.“Kee and I were mortally wounded and brought to Earth, revived, and eventually joined Starfleet.And here I am.”

“So, you, uh, acclimated,” Sonny said.

“Yup,” Fili replied.“Let’s take a walk.”

 

The two walked over toward the observation area, where the trams left the station toward their destinations throughout the planet.Sonny breathed in the sea air, a bit too deeply and coughed for a moment, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“That a guitar you got?” Fili asked, looking down at his case.

“Yup!” Sonny affirmed. 

Fili gestured with open hands.“Let’s see whatcha got.”

Sonny unclasped the case and brought out the guitar that he had replicated on the _Enterprise_.It still had the decals he had requested for it.Fili looked on with amusement. 

“Looks like the one my brother likes to use,” Fili noted. 

“Oh?Where’s he at?We could jam,” Sonny suggested. 

“Well, he’s on his way to Earth, but we’ve got some things to do before we can get down to jamming,” Fili said.“My planet’s on the verge of being accepted within the Federation.”

“No shit,” Sonny said, grinning.“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Fili said.“And I’ll be joining the crew of the ship he’s on.So do you just play, or do you compose?”

“I’ve gotten a few credits, here ’n there,” Sonny said.“Probably nothing you’ve heard of.”

“Maybe.Had a chance to do anything new since you arrived?”

Sonny looked down at Fili and shrugged.“Something I’ve been picking at.”He took the guitar and began to strum.“I don’t have words or nothin’ like that, but…something.”

Fili nodded his head to the music and began to clap along.The two of them played like that, with Sonny vocalizing a bit where the lyrics would have been, and two of them passed the time, engrossed in the music. 

When Sonny looked up, there was a crowd of thirty folks, some of them not human, gathered around them.When his hand was still, he felt that old rush like he remembered.

The rush that came with the applause of a crowd.

Fili looked out at them, his face lit with approval.“It looks like you’ve got a hit on your hands,” he told Sonny. 

Sonny looked genuinely bashful when Fili said so.He’d been a bit brash at first, saying all his old stuff was new again, but to actually see the reaction…it hit him.Tears sprung from the corner of his eyes as the crowd began to disperse. 

“Yeah,” he said, softly.“Maybe this’ll work out after all.”


End file.
